Welcome to the Hog Blog, a blog chronicling minor-league baseball in the Lehigh Valley. Tom Housenick, The Morning Call's IronPigs beat writer, has been at The Morning Call since 2008. In a previous lifetime, he was at Lackawanna County Stadium in Moosic talking with future Phillies Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Shane Victorino and Ryan Howard, among many others.
He’ll now be spending his summers in search of who the Phillies are hoping to be the next Chase Utley and Cole Hamels plus any outfielder who catch and hit. What he really hopes to find are the next Mariano Rivera, Todd Helton and Jim Thome --- great human beings who happened to be great at this sport.
He spent the last five years covering Colonial League football, college basketball and high school track & field.

Pity someone couldn't have juggled their rotation a bit to match up Carlos Carrasco, the IronPigs starter today, with Michael Bowden, Pawtucket's starter on Monday. Carrasco is the Phillies top pitching prospect while Bowden is not only Boston's top pitching prosect but also one of the tops in all of baseball. Bowden has allowed one run in his first 14 innings this year.

Only one change to the lineup tonight -- with Carlos Ruiz making his first rehab start behind the plate, Paul Hoover goes to the plate and J.J. Furmaniak hits eighth, playing third base. There are a few position changes, however -- Mike Cervenak, who played third last night when Ruiz was the DH, is at first today while Andy Tracy serves as DH.